The banning of assault rifles is because it’s easy and doesn’t detract from peoples lives at all. Assault rifles are for assault and we don’t need more assault. So why have them? Because a few people think it’s cool to own?

Pistols and other Guns aren’t very effective at stopping deaths, but they’re perceived to be good defense, so banning them en mass is less palatable.

NYC banned pistols once because it was often the source of gang violence - and violence went down. Smart legislation used to address statistic use not headlines. But any ban will save lives and make people safer (and feel safer) so that’s why politicians today are clawing for whatever legislation they can pass.

>Assault rifles are for assault and we don’t need more assault. So why have them? Because a few people think it’s cool to own?

People who think this should have a grizzly bear run at them at least once.

Having seen it from a car I became pro-minigun instantly.

Let's see how a place like Romania manage it - lots of bears in the Carpathian Mountains, _very_ strict gun laws.

Friends were traveling to the famous https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfăgărășan just for kicks and halfway through they got SMS alerts "Bears in the vicinity" even though they were visiting foreigners. They actually saw the bears on the road itself, but a quickly dispatched van with park rangers arrived at the scene, mostly to control the traffic and protect the bears from all the people in the death machines, as well as tourists "making selfies with the bears" ... after some minutes the bears tired of the situation and left the road.

I guess my point is its a matter of implementing "a greater good" measure, and then fixing the edge cases with some smart policies / tech / people.

Like in tech sometimes its worth it to implement a big refactor that would enable faster / better code, even though it might lead to some edge cases that need to be addressed. Its tricky of course but such a _massive_ win as gun laws just can't be ignored I think.

It's like complaining that if you change your lead pipes to copper / plastic is too much work, and who cares if some people die of lead poisoning now and again, but leaks are much easier to fix with lead ... and you already have so much stock of pipes just not worth it ...

P.S. I'm truly sorry if this leads to a flame work and I know its a sensitive topic, but from a European perspective the threat of violent uprising has always been such a weird thing to put as a "benefit" having rifles around. Like if your system is designed in such a way that violence is a "check" on something ... is it really a good system? Like sure governors feel a bit scared of loonies with rifles killing them for their transgressions, but wouldn't it be better that people actually rely on safer and more gentle political transitions rather than coup d'état? And I don't think gun laws ever prevented disgruntled constituents to kill government officials - e.g. Abe in Japan.

> the threat of violent uprising has always been such a weird thing to put as a "benefit" having rifles around.

How are things in Ukraine? 20 years ago do you think anyone in Ukraine would have imagined Russia would be bombing their cities?

You never know when a situation changes and you need an armed population.

You do realize the grizzly isn't the European brown bear right?

European brown bears are cuddly lovable puppies by comparison, grizzlies are murder machines with an attitude which can outrun and out climb you.

>I guess my point is its a matter of implementing "a greater good" measure, and then fixing the edge cases with some smart policies / tech / people.

This is a prime example of being confidently wrong and making moral judgments from ignorance. It's easy to put down "those people" living in the mountains when you've never been there. It's even easier to make laws that kill them since they are obviously too stupid to know what's good for them and you'll never have to see them.

Federalism is a good thing, and not just when you can smoke weed.

I love hiking into remote areas, including "bear country". I have seen black bears and grizzly bears while hiking.

You do not need assault rifles, this sounds silly and over the top. You just need to be aware of your surroundings, follow the rules and have a bear spray : https://www.nps.gov/subjects/bears/safety.htm

A bear charging at you at full tilt gives you all of half a second to get it with the 9 meter range of bear spray. That's roughly how long it takes you to hit two keyboard keys in a row.

This is such a ridiculously specific situation most people won’t ever be in.

It’s such a small portion of the population that would have such a need for a gun that it can be handled as a special case in laws. No reason the rest of society can’t be safe.

You claim people have assault rifles to shoot suddenly attacking grizzly bears? And keep shooting ready?

What a ridiculous argument. Most of the artic guides I've seen are running around with beat up 12ga pumps and slugs.

I think its rather arrogant to think that we have perfected government to the point that we can willingly disarm ourselves of one of the most effective forms of defense...

I think it’s arrogant to think a few privately owned guns can actually compare to the massive armory of the US government.

Also, it’s funny that when people actually fight back against government abuse (George Floyd protests) the gun owning demographic seems to find it wrong to be violent despite claiming guns are meant to be used against the government.

It's been shown time and time again that you do not need to, nor do you go toe to toe with the "entire armory of the US government."

It's possible to want to ability to defend yourself while also thinking violence for the sake of violence isn't right. The issue most people had with the protests were that so many innocent people got caught in the cross hairs.

You obviously have no idea what an assault rifle is, just made an assumption from the name.

An assault rifle is a normal rifle that because of a few cosmetic features looks like a military gun. None of those features make it more deadly than any other gun.

Semi auto high caliber rifle capable of holding a magazine over 10 rounds. Happy? Don't split hairs.

Actually, I'm not sure why I get sucked into these discussions time after time. Nothing will ever change without a constitutional amendment. The left needs to make its peace with that.

Semi auto with a folding stock, bayonet mount, or one of several other things that make it look ugly.

> more deadly than any other gun.

Any other gun is still plenty deadly that my point stands.

But a lot of headlines talk about banning assault rifles so I used that term.

There’s a somewhat valid claim that pistols are good for self defense because they’re easy to carry. Will anyone use it for self defense? Statistically no. But the perception is there. Rifles, cosmetically altered or not do not have such a feature.

I think politicians fixate on rifles because angry constituents armed with rifles are what they personally fear the most. It's not about the general population stats at all. They don't really care about interpersonal/domestic violence or random street crime being committed with pawn shop revolvers or knives, even though these together account for the overwhelming majority of murders.

Neither the post you respond to nor anyone I've spoken with make claim that assault rifles represent a significant portion of gun deaths. That politicians gravitate to 'banning assault rifles' is lazy governance. Much tighter regulation of all guns would be making a difference.